Keeping the Home Fires Burning

On one very hot day in May when my husband was away, I looked at my roommate and declared "I am going to have to use the grill."

We've had the grill since we moved into our house three years ago now. I refused to touch it. Refused, in fact, to go near it until early spring when Scott insisted I learn how to turn it on.

Luckily for all of us, the instructions on turning this machine on are also on the grill itself. Yet, still, I held my breath.

When it was time to hit the ingite button, I scooted as far back as humanly possible so that only the EDGE of my finger was near enough to be singed off when the entire thing exploded. I mean, let's face it, I would NOT look cute sans eyebrows.

In a frightening WHOOSH, the thing was alive and I was cooking with gas.

I managed to burn neither myself nor my dinner.

I was pretty damn proud of myself. But also still totally petrified of the grill.

During another heat spell here in Minnesota, I bucked up. Because I telecommute, I am the one who is responsible for at least getting dinner started. And there was no way said dinner was going to be made in my house.

Having not experienced my first success at the grill, I was excited to show Scott what I knew. And to my delight, so was he. In fact, three grilled meals later, he declared me a Grill Mastress.

For Father's Day I suggested we grill and asked him what he wanted. He gave me the menu and then dropped this little bomb: he was turning the tongs over to me!

You read that right, the man told me I was a better griller than he, and that I should go with my strengths.

My strengths being, I think, an ability to not open the grill to check on meat 100 times in five minutes, therefore regulating the grill temperature to some degree of accuracy.

Anyway, I was only too glad to take the task on, feeling like kind of a badass. Kind of like the first time in my single life I used an electric drill and did a Tim Allen grunt before putting together my Target bookshelf.

You know who wasn't glad? Scott's dad. HORRIFIED, in fact. Throughout the entire dinner, he just kept shaking his head and said "can't believe you turned grilling over to your wife. It's the only thing we men can do other than sit and drink beer."

Well, no argument on the latter part, anyway.

My husband shrugged his shoulders, complimented me on an awesome kabob, and went about his beer drinking.

That, my friends, is why I married this man. Secure enough in his manhood to occasionally give me good shoe advice and gracious enough to let the best man win in the grilling war.

Who does the grilling in your house? Safe to say I'll be grilling our 4th food. What's on your menu this glorious LONG WEEKEND??

Getting My Way

I was what you would call a rather precocious child. I was anxious around other kids and tended to be more comfortable around adults. I found out early the best way to explain myself to anyone was through writing. I focused this primarily on my parents and primarily as a way to get what I wanted.

The first essay I recall writing was "Why I Deserve to be a Latchkey Kid." I think it focused on me being a whole 11 years old and way too old for daycare, and being really, really responsible and such. I believe I promised to call as soon as I walked in the door, open said door for nobody else, and stay put until a parent came through said door.

I presented the essay to my parents, they conferred, and I was allowed to be a latchkey kid. Let me make one small point of clarification: It was for approximately 30 minutes. But I got a taste of freedom and I went with it.

Essays ensued from there on to include Why I Deserve a Cat (I ended up with a bunny, after being extra manipulative and ending with "I just want something of my own to love"), Why I Deserve a Later Bedtime (I got that one, too) and Why I Deserve my Own Phone (a beautiful dark dusty rose that actually came a few years after the essay, so I guess I was losing my touch).

I've decided this is how I am going to handle things with Wee 'Burb. If she wants something, she has to present a logical argument for it. And accept she may not always get it.

How were your requests handled when you were growing up?

The Drive of Shame

All my life, I have wanted to drive a golf cart.

I even tried to convince Scott that we should drive away from our wedding in a golf cart. No sale.

Possibly because we were married in a rather urban area and our reception was like 15 miles away.

Details, people, details!

Anyway, for my birthday I asked Scott to book a golf day, where I could drive a golf cart.

I've never golfed before. EVER.

My roommate and Scott have each golfed a few times. None of us has clubs or any of the other required golf paraphernalia, so we went in early to get costumed.

I told the guy flat out we were all newbies and we needed everything. So he set us up with a golf cart and clubs. We were so shocked by the total at that point, we didn't notice something was missing until we got to the golf cart.

We didn't have balls.

So Scott goes back in and looks kind of green at the cost of the golf balls and I'm beginning to get that "bad idea" feeling.

Then we realize we don't have tees.

This time I go in and get tees, which the manager kindly gives me for free. I think he had the "bad idea" feeling himself.

So I'm tentative with the golf cart at first, but then find it as cool as I imagined. We drive to the first tee and while we wait for the foursome ahead of us, we talk to the ranger. He gives us a few pointers and we kind of smile. I ask him what we're aiming for. He points to a flag faaaar away. I think we BOTH get the "bad idea" feeling.

So it's finally time for us to tee up and I'm getting pointers while watching people behind us pile up. We all hit into different areas, and Scott can't even find his ball (tee hee, does golf terminology make you giggle, too?). We park the cart in the general direction of where we think the ball is and while he searches, I do my next few...um, hits? Swings? I'm not sure. Let's say I was at 6 on a par 3 and I hadn't even met the green yet.

This is when the ranger came down. Did we know that we could bring our golf carts on to the green to aid in the search for Scott's wayward ball? We did not. In fact, we had given up at this point looking for his ball and were working on me getting to the green.

We looked behind us and saw more people following us. So we decided to skip this hole and go to hole 2.

I actually got it on the green and I gave a "woo hoo" which I was cautioned by my roommate was not acceptable golf behavior.

Then the manager came down, with the ranger right behind him. Yup, "bad idea" feeling rearing its ugly head.

The manager reminds us that we need to keep up with the group ahead of us on this course. We said we knew, that's why we skipped the hole.

He says "I'm not here to scold you, you did the right thing skipping the hole. I just wanted to offer you something, if you're open to it. We can refund your money and you guys can take the golf carts to the driving range. We'll give you free tokens to the driving range and you guys can hit balls there."

Through laughs I choked out a "thank you, that's a nice offer. We'll take it."

Then we had to drive the golf carts PAST the people lined up behind us and I truly think golf etiquette was the only thing keeping them from clapping and a rousing round of "na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye."

It's what I would have done.

You guys? That was the most shameful apology tour EVER. We just drove by and waved at all the foursomes behind us, who were all kind enough to wave back and not outwardly laugh at our incompetence.

We had a great time at the driving range, where it's OK to suck.

And they did indeed refund all of our money.

The funny thing? I would totally golf again. We picked a pro course, which was a huge mistake. My roommate suggests golfing as early in the morning as possible under cover of darkness. SOLD!

Have you ever been kicked out of a sporting event?

All Mine

My first real apartment was about 600 square feet. All mine. It was considered desirable because it was a two-room studio, which meant there was a wall between the living room/kitchen portion and the bedroom/bathroom portion. No door, but a wall.

All mine.

For the first few months I was there, I would get up early and sip my coffee from my newly purchased yellow coffee mugs (Corelle outlet). I would sit in my alcove on my inherited chairs in front of my inherited teeny-tiny table pushed up against my bay window. That was my favorite feature of the apartment. Other than it being all mine.

I think about this apartment a lot lately. While I love my little chaotic home life, some days I am wistful about being ALONE. Sipping a cup of coffee, watching what I want on TV, cooking for one and hand-washing the dishes afterward.

Mornings now are spent listening to Wee 'Burb's chatting get more and more insistent until I know she has to be removed from the crib. I get her dressed, and we brush our teeth and hair. Then she plays a little game where she says "where daddy?" until he comes and gets her. He plays with her a little bit while I throw on some clothes to take her across the street to daycare. I come home and either take the dog for a walk if I have a lighter deadline week, or pour myself a cup of coffee (out of my wedding present, a set of glass coffee mugs from William Sonoma) and log in to work.

This chaos? Also all mine. In a different way. In a wonderful way. But in a different way. For now? I am never alone. Also? I am never lonely.

How I Plan to Stop Grocery Terrorists

Hey hey! Go check me out on Tenaciously Yours today where I talk about how I actively fight against Grocery Terrorism.

Post-Posting Thoughts and I'm Blogworthy!

After thinking more on my post Is Optimism Good and reading Amanda at It's Blogworthy's advice to interns on how to approach internships without a sense of entitlement, I have just a few more observations.

1. Thanks so much to Amanda for giving me this awesome award! Seriously, she has inspired me so much with my blog, it's a total honor to get something like this.

2. I think my post seemed more wistful than I intended. There is no day where I am sad that I am not running a magazine. There are some days, maybe, where I wish I could be published. But a lot of you pointed out that this blog is some form of that, and for now other than freelance work, it's what I have the time and patience for.

3. If my post interested you at all, you really should go read the comments. I really loved each and every one I got, and did my best to respond to those I could. But some of my favorites included:

• Erica and Pine Lakes Redhead who explained: I feel that my parents gave me the confidence that I could take on any challenge I wanted. But at the same time, I was raised to be practical. I know where my strengths and weakness lie. It must work because I don't feel limited in what I do.
• Sam from Life as a Wife says:  I was raised being told I could do anything I wanted but also was taught that dreams require hard work and time.
• Serena at the Bewildered Bug quotes:  A friend of mine from high school aptly put it - reach up for the moon because if you miss, you'll be among the stars.
• Ixy over at Illusion tells it like it is:  I feel really strongly about this - you're not doing your child (or the world) a favour by pretending they can do anything they want. That said, the world is so cruel and parents should be the support kids can always count on. I think our job is to guide our kids about the consequences of their decisions, and encourage them to ask questions that will get them thinking realistically. For example, "what else would you like to do if becoming a rock star is taking longer than expected"?
• Mama Spaghetti spells it out: I am a Gen-Y-er, but I am constantly frustrated by my peers and how entitled they feel about, well, pretty much everything. Somewhere along the way it was like building self-esteem steam-rolled right over realism, and it's left a lot of people I know floundering.

The more I think about it, I think it comes down to confidence and then the real-world application. Bottom line: it's about rolling with the punches. Maybe a big dream can be broken down into smaller dreams, right? So while I am certainly not going to be starting my own magazine, I did start this blog, and I did go for freelance jobs outside of my day-to-day work that allow me to write what I like.

Maybe I will never publish a book, but my name is out there in bylines. I've published work before.

The thing is, I'm so happy with my life. I CHOSE this life, and chose which items of my list were no longer important. At some point, my priorities shifted and I realized that I wanted to focus on my family. I woke up one day and said "my job is not going to keep me warm at night" and that was that.

Because my parents taught me to trust my gut and make my own decisions, I was able to decide to go in a direction that makes me happiest. I had the confidence to reset my goals. I used to see this as settling. I settled for this blog instead of a magazine, or settled for small freelance assignments rather than a published book.

But now I realize it's not settling. It's simply rolling with life's punches. Truly, we all need to evaluate our lists every few years, and focus on what's important now. And have the confidence to say "it's okay, I didn't complete that. I have something better."

As something better goes, how can you beat this?

Wilma, Get Me Off of This Thing Called...CARTOONS

I am entering the world of cartoon obsession slowly with Wee 'Burb. At 19 months, she doesn't have much of an attention span, though she will come crawling as fast as she can when any of the following theme songs come on: Elmo's World, Bubble Guppies, and The Simpsons (what? She doesn't know the difference). And since my roommate introduced her to Elmo on YouTube, she just shouts "ELMO" at every computer she sees. So I can see the obsession building.

Recently, Shine waxed nostalgic about the best and worst cartoon heroines for our daughters.

Thankfully, one of my FAVORITES made the good girl list. Jem! Jem! She's truly outrageous, truly truly outrageous!

Source: Wikipedia

Here's what Shine says about our girl Jem:

If your daughters have never seen Jem, she may be worth an introduction. For a cartoon, she's one heck of a woman. Not only does Jem front an arena rock band, she's a big-time music producer—a rarity in the real-life male dominated industry. Jem also runs a non-profit foundation that supports foster kids, 12 of whom live with her and the Holograms at their sweet pad.

So who made the worst list? Wilma from The Flinstones was billed as an abuse survivor. Tinkerbell was written off as the nymph she is. And did you guys know this about Smurfette??!!

Totally true cartoon backstory of how the only lady Smurf (until 2008) came into being: evil Gargamel created her from clay to sabotage the pleasant, woman-free (they probably call it 'smurfy') way of life in Smurf Village. When she was found out as nothing but a two-bit seductress, she was shamed in Smurf court. Papa Smurf, kind-hearted leader or lecherous, racist tyrant depending on your outlook, took pity on her and broke the spell Gargamel used to create her. Here's where she gets even worse: once Papa removed her dark powers, her brown, frizzy her turned to blond, wavy locks. Also her flats became heels. And her white dress got embellishments.


I thought she was just slightly slutty in her smurfy way! I had no idea she came with a back story.

So let's talk cartoons, people. What should I allow my kiddo to watch? What do you remember about your childhood cartoons? I recently introduced Wee 'Burb to Fraggle Rock and she loves it. I'm scared to find out the back stories of some of those! Especially since I am convinced Trash Heap is Edna Garrett in trash form. Do you even care about role models, or is it just a good way to keep them quiet for a few mintues so you can pee?